Nearly 10,000 witnesses appeared before this
Commission to give evidence in respect of the disappearance of
their family members. Their personal accounts of this period form
a very rich source of information for the understanding of
society at the time.

It was a crisis period. The functioning of
society, its administration and law enforcement, were put to
severe test. The merits and defects of a system can be better
judged by its performance during a crisis situation. the evidence
as a whole is a damning indictment of what happened during that
dark era, whether it happened at the hands of the agents of the
state, private persons who tried to take advantage of the
situation to settle their personal grudges, or subversives. The
evidence echoed the common yearning: "Never Again."

1. The Use of Violence

When one says that terrorism has to be
countered even by resorting to violence, the rationale offered is
that it is done "in good faith" to safeguard society
and to save the country. When one says that excesses should be
tolerated, the assumption is that they are unavoidable. Can you
explain this logic to the affected families who have undergone
the kind of experiences described below?

A. Hostage-taking-A group of army
personnel had come in search of a youth who was alleged to have
been involved in subversive activities. Since he was not at home
that night, they had threatened to take somebody from the family
as a hostage. When the father volunteered to go with them, they
had ridiculed him by saying: "No use of old codgers, we want
to take that girl." Another girl was also abducted from the
same area, and it was later found that both girls had been raped,
killed and their bodies burnt. The person who came to her house
that night had been a well-built, tall person with a moustache.
With eyes filled with tears, the mother said: "People know
about this, so I have nothing to hide. She was so small and
fragile. I don't know how they could do a thing like that to my
little girl."

Some army personnel had come in search of a
man, who was involved in subversive activities. Since he was in
hiding, they had wanted to extract information from his wife as
to his whereabouts. Not, only had they assaulted her but had also
dug a whole in the ground and put her 10 month old daughter in it
and covered her in soil up to her shoulders. They had also taken
with them her 10 years old son as a hostage. Her husband was
later abducted and killed but the ten-year old boy was never
returned home and is still missing.

A young woman had been visiting her parents
with her husband. At night a group of police officers had come to
the house in search of her brother who was suspected of
subversive activities. When they were told that the brother was
staying at her place, they had taken her husband as a decoy to
find him and subsequently, both of them had disappeared. When the
family met the A.S.P. of the area, they were told: "At a
time like this, we can't choose between good and bad people.
Don't ask us. Go and ask the government. Don't pursue this matter
any more because you are only making enemies in vain."

The evidence placed before this Commission has
reveled that hostage-taking was a common practice in all the
three provinces investigated by us. In some cases, hostages were
released after the surrender of the suspects, but in many cases,
hostages never returned.

B. Revenge Killings.- We came across
many cases where women, little children, and elderly parents had
to make the supreme sacrifice for the "sins" committed
by their family members.

When a group of army personnel had come in
search of an army deserter who was suspected of subversive
activities, he had run away and escaped. Then they locked up his
wife inside the house and set it on fire. They had also abducted
his brother who is reported missing since then.

The person involved in this case had not been
an active subversive but one who had expressed
"leftist" ideas very critical of the government. He had
used very abusive language when he got drunk and had antagonized
people as a result. He had also been questioned several times by
the army. One day at night a group of persons had come to his
house and killed eight inmates and set the house on fire. Among
the dead were an 89yr. old man, a woman, and five children.

In another case, a death squad had killed 8
persons (belonging to two families) and burnt the house. One girl
escaped with stap injuries. Among the dead were three adults and
six children (between the ages 3 and 10).

C. Indiscriminate Killings.- Reflecting
on the indiscriminate and senseless nature of killings during
this period, a witness told the Commission that people were
treated like stray dogs. But he added: "Even a dog is killed
only when it is mad."

Another said: "People in our area were
scared even to go to town, because the army had abducted many
boys at the time. Even 12-year old boys were arrested. Therefore,
young boys did not go to town even to get their hair cut. That
was all done at home." The father of a Muslim scholarship
student at Ananda College recounted the loss of his son caught in
the curfew on his return journey from the Maradana Mosque and
disappeared since.

My son was not doing any kind of JVP
politics. He can't even write One day he went with a crowd to
do street decorations for a SLFP meeting. If it was thought
that he was doing politics, that was the only political work
he did. He went there not because he was a SLFP supporter but
to earn a living. We have no time to engage in politics. For
our day-to-day existence, he had to do odd jobs to earn a
daily wage.

We did not do anything wrong, so we stayed at
home. That's why we became an easy prey. The real subversives
were in hiding, and now have returned to our villages.

When terrorist attacks took place, people
around the area were taken in for questioning and subsequently
some of them disappeared as a result of reprisal killings. In
certain area, the security forces were looking for a person named
"Shantha," and several youth in the area by the same
name had been arrested and they never returned home. During this
period, the subversives had made a habit of collecting identity
cards from people. Therefore, some people found it difficult to
prove their identity when they were arrested at road blocks or in
search operation.

In a few cases, we found that people with
mental and physical disabilities had also disappeared One mother
said that her son who had a severe stammering problem was
abducted by security forces at a bus stand and he never returned
home. According to the mother, her son was not involved in any
kind of subversive activity, but she suspected that her son would
not have been able to prove his innocence due to his speech
disability.

D. Corruption.- Some people tried to
make money out of the misery of the family members of the
disappeared. Using their contacts with police stations and army
camps, some brokers had asked for money from families to secure
the release of their lived ones. The were also allegations
against police and army personnel for demanding money to release
the suspects. A wife of an army lieutenant, nicknamed "Rose
Madam," had allegedly taken large sums of money to secure
the release of detainees. There were also several allegations
against police and army personnel for soliciting sexual favours
from the wives of disappeared persons, offering assistance to
secure the release of their husbands.

E. Disappearances Due to Personal
Animosities.- Personal jealousies, animosities, family
disputes due to property-related issues, and even controversies
surrounding love affairs, caused untold misery to people during
this period. Caste rivalry also featured in a few cases of
disappearances. As there was no proper investigation, even
innocent people could be implicated in subversive activities. It
happened in several ways: some provided false information to the
authorities; some got the assistance of state agents to eliminate
their opponents; some organized their own gangs to eliminate
their enemies. This last category of cases simply amounts to
private murder, but since the normal laws of the land were silent
during this period, many such crimes were not properly
investigated, and as a result, they were also passed off as
political crimes. One more body burning on a tyre did not arouse
any undue suspicion during this period.

We had several complaints where the
controversies surrounding love affairs had led to disappearances
of persons. One girl directly accused her father of being
instrumental in the disappearance of her boy friend. In another
case, a sister attributed the disappearance of her brother to a
love affair he had with a girl of a wealthy family. He had
received threats from this family to lay off the girl. On an
earlier occasion too, they had tried to threaten him through the
police. It was revealed in another case that a police officer in
a clandestine love affair with a school girl had objected to
another boy in the same school having a similar affair with this
girl's sister. That boy and his friend who challenged the police
officer's objections subsequently disappeared. The evidence
revealed that this police officer had played a certain role in
their abductions.

The kind of incidents described so far reflects
a very dangerous situation in the sense that nobody is safe in a
crisis situation. One cannot rest assured that he is safe just
because he is a law-abiding citizen. In a normal situation, one
can have recourse to the judicial process and other safeguards
provided by the law, but it is quite different in a situation
similar to the one that existed in the late 1980's. Usually a
curfew is meant to keep people at home. But during the
"reign of terror", curfews were very often used to
"lift" people from their homes.

II. Breach of Public Trust and
Disenchantment with Law Enforcement During this period, many police stations had flatly refused
to entertain complaints from persons whose family members were
abducted by security forces. A common complaint was: "We
were chased away like dogs." One mother described how an
officer whom she knew by name had denied to her face that her son
had been brought to the police station. "This was
unbelievable. Only two hours prior to that my son had been
removed from home by these very persons." Asked whether she
had made a complaint to any other police station or state
authority, she promptly replied: "No, it would have been
like asking the thief's mother to catch the thief."

It was inevitable then, that the police
functions of recording and investigating into complaints of the
general public, so central to the effective administration of the
criminal law, completely broke down. "The police drove me
away. The Grama Sevaka said: go to the new Grama Sevaka. The New
Grama Sevaka said: Go to the old," said a mother who had
lost two sons. Another witness said: "I appealed to the IGP
for assistance as the areapolice refused to record my
complaint of the abduction of my son. The IGP referred the matter
for inquiry to the very same person who had refused in the first
place. He is the A. S. P. of the area now."

In response to an appeal made by the government
for those involved in subversive activities to surrender, a
person had surrendered himself to the authorities, but had
subsequently disappeared. On inquiring from the particular law
enforcement officers to whom he had surrendered, the mother of
the corpus had been told that her son had escaped from custody.
The mother said: "I feel that we were fooled. We thought my
son's life will be saved if he surrendered." Another witness
said:

When my son, a Technical College
Scholarship student was released on Amnesty after the 1988
Presidential Election, the police said: "don't think you
have escaped", he was abducted soon afterwards and has
since disappeared.

It was revealed in a number of cases that
suspect, released from police/army custody , were abducted again
no sooner they had left that place. In another set of cases, the
police had produced the suspects before court reporting that
there was no sufficient evidence for prosecution. When they were
released from court, the victims had simply disappeared on their
way back home.
Several witnesses complained that the real culprits referred to
by them were not produced when identification parades were held.
In one such case, our investigations revealed the following
facts. The corpus was abducted by "X" (name given)
attached to a certain police station in the South. On a complaint
made by his father, an inquiry was held by another police
station, and this matter was subsequently referred to the
Magistrate. An identification parade was held in court. Twelve
police constables attached to this particular police station had
been produced at the parade. The P. C. referred to by the
complainant was not produced at the parade although he had been
attached to this particular police station when the abduction
took place on 14.12.1990. There is no record at this particular
police station regarding the arrest and detention of the corpus
on the given date.

Many families believed that justice has not
been meted out to the affected families. They lamented that those
who were responsible for the disappearances of their children
have not been punished; they have not even been transferred out
of those areas; instead they have got promotions and are doing
well. As one witness put it:

The Governor who imposed Marshal Law in
1915 was recalled by the British Government. But persons
identifiable, who have been responsible for acts such as the
enforced disappearance of my son are still at large.

I lived during the Second World War. There
were even foreign soldiers on Sri Lankan soil at that time.
But there was a law at that time. There was always some
senior officer to whom one could make a complaint. But during
1988-89 there was no law. They just wanted to kill somebody.

III.The Destruction of the
Democratic base of Society The "reign of terror" was not simply a two-sided
conflict between the government and the ruling party on the one
side and the JVP movement on the other. Other oppositional
parties also became targets of attack by both the government and
the JVP. A systematic repression and general intolerance of the
democratic opposition was spoken to by witnesses in the case
after another.

As incidents of disappearances of candidates
and active supporters occurred, and arson and murder of political
opponents in the guise of anti-subversive activities increase, a
disgust of elections was brought about in the people. "This
is what happens a when you participate in elections", said
the mother of a political activist who has disappeared.

The suppression of the freedom of speech
association was also spoken of by petitioners giving evidence on
the abduction and disappearance of journalists, of human rights
activists, of trade unionists, and of NGO activists in these
fields The following are some of the incidents that transpired in
our evidence.

A mother spoke of her son, an undergraduate
working as a journalist in human rights while the University
was closed, who was abducted and has disappeared since.
Witnesses spoke of how a Habeas Corpus application had to be
withdrawn due to threats to their lawyer; and of the actual
murder of another lawyer who was appearing for them.
A brother of the then General Secretary of the SLFP Trade
Union Federation, "disappeared without trace on a bus
journey to Colombo."wife
My mother, a trained family planning advisor, was an active
member of the Mid-Wives Union. They came in the night and
took her away while she was still in her night-dress; she has
since disappeared.daughter.
My husband was a supervisor at the Kotmale work site and was
abducted when he formed a trade union there.wife.
My husband tried to form a trade Union in the Free Trade
Zone, Katunayake. He and four others were abducted on the
same day and have disappeared since.wife.

IV. The destruction of Community InitiativesThe for psychosis had gripped the entire society. In the face
of the anxiety and uncertainty engendered, people became passive
onlookers to the many tragic events of this period.

We who would move to a side the body of a
dog found dead on the roadside saying "aney" were
rendered passive spectators to the sight of young mutilated
bodies burning at the cross-roads
.I didn't report the abduction and disappearance of my
widowed sister's only son as I have a son and I feared for
his safety should I do so.
The army took away my two sons as they were walking by the
road. One of them has returned. We are rendered passive
victims as regards the disappearance of the other through
fear our surviving son too will be lost to us.
My heart wished to bring him (corpse) home no one would help
me.
In a case where a woman was hostage instead of her husband,
the neighbours refused to open their doors to her twelve year
old son.

The temple, the hospitalthe traditional
symbols of refuge and helpbecame associated instead with
the destroyer. "We had no one to turn to. Even our temple
had been turned into an Army-Camp", said a sorrowing mother.
"When we found my brother with gun-shot injuries, my husband
took him to the Government Hospital, and remained in the ward
with him. But the Army abducted my brother from the ward and
there is no news of him since", said a sister, vividly
describing how doctors and medical staff became passive
by-standers.

V. Lost Hopes and Shattered DreamsIn Sri Lanka the free education system has provided the poor
and the underprivileged majority with considerable opportunities
for upward social mobility. They feel that it is only through
education that they can surmount the barriers that keep them
disadvantaged, whether these barriers are created by race, caste,
creed, class, or other social and economic factors. In our survey
on university students, we found that most of the disappeared
students (even in the "prestigious" faculties such as
Medicine and Engineering) came from very humble social
backgrounds. Besides university students, a large number of
school children had also disappeared during this period.
Considering the meager income of these families, it is obvious
that they would have made tremendous sacrifices to bring them up
to that level. They were the ultimate hope of their parents for
the security and social status of the family. Their disappearance
shattered beyond repair all their hopes and dreams.

The potential that article 12 of our
constitution carries in providing rights and opportunities to
persons who would otherwise be subject to certain barriers was
blighted in the guise of counter-subversive operations. Some
incidents revealed in our inquiries were in relation to families
who had suffered disadvantages on the ground apparently of caste
and on account of being economically disadvantaged families

A witness giving evidence regarding the
disappearance of his son, a second-year university student, said:

Anything can be robbed but not education.
So we educated our child. But somebody has robbed him of his
life. We can't understand this. My wife has become a mental
patient thinking about our son all the time. Now she mutters
nonsense. She was treated at Angoda and Mulleriyawa
hospitals. She is still undergoing treatment.

A young woman who gave evidence before the
Commission regarding the disappearance of her brother (third-year
medical student) had subsequently sent a letter the Commission
saying:

At the end of the inquiry, I realized that
my brother is no more. I swear that the most painful moment I
have experienced in my life was when I was told that I can
get a death certificate for him. We wanted my brother to get
a Medical degree certificate. We don't want a death
certificate for him. My father died ten years ago, and my
mother had to beat coconut husks by hand to obtain the fibre
for the manufacture of coir rope in order to bring up nine
children. When my brother disappeared, we had to spend a lot
in our search for him and we got into a worse financial
situation...

"My son was the only educated person my
village had. If you suspect a person take him to courts; don't
kill him" said a father, depressed caste, recounting the
abduction and subsequent disappearance of his bright younger son.
In his evidence he described how the older brother coming in from
minding the cattle would ask eagerly "has malli
(younger brother) been found" and how that son too committed
suicide thereafter.

VI. Killings by subversives

779 killings by subversives were reported to
this Commission. Among the victims were personnel of the security
forces, their relations, grama niladharis, gramarakshakas,
politicians, and ordinary citizens.

In one case, subversives had killed 9 inmates
of a hours (belonging to two families) and also set the house on
fire.

Among the dead were an old woman, two
middle-aged women, two men, and four youths. The reason was that
when subversives had come to collect money on a previous
occasion, theyhad been assaulted by two members of this family.

The wife of a cultivator in the Sabaragamuwa
province giving evidence before the Commission stated that in
July 1989 subversives had come to her house and killed her
husband. He had been first stabbed several times and later shot
with a gun. She attributed this killing to the fact that her
husband had worked for and was closely associated with a
prominent politician of the ruling party at the time.
Consequently, the state had paid her compensation for the loss of
her husband. A couple of days later a gang of persons whom she
suspected to be of the same group that had killed her husband had
come home and looted money and provisions at home.

Killings by subversives led to reprisal
killings by the agents of the state. At one of the monthly
meetings of a certain Provincial Council, a member has said (the
minutes of the meeting on 27.2.1992 was produced in evidence):

No other person has suffered from terror as
much as I did. My eldest daughter was 17 years old. The other
was only 5. Both of them were brutally murdered by JVPers my
17 year old daughter was still a school gir1. What was the
crime she committed to deserve such a death. They came in
disguise to destroy us. Three JVPers were killed in my own
house. Eleven others who killed my children were burnt on
tyres. Karmic cycle has taken over. A few others are still in
rehabilitation camps. Revenge will be taken on when they are
released.

Some witnesses produced threatening letters
that their families had received from subversives. In one case, a
father of 9 children who had lost his wife two years back, had
been abducted by subversives and tied to a lamp post and shot
dead. A threatening note he had received reads as follows:

We know that J. R. Jayewardene, the
murderer, will not conduct the Presidential Election
scheduled to be held on December 19th in a free
and fair manner as his aim is to extend the tenure of his
regime. Therefore we have named the UNP, SLFP, and the USA as
banned parties. It will be considered and unpatriotic and
treacherous act to serve at any election center as a party
representative or to give any support at the election. You
are strictly warned not to participate as a party
representative. If this order is defied, punishment will be
death. (signed by Commanding Officer, Anadena Mulasthanaya,
Deshapremi Sannaddha Balakaya, Kegalle.)

The person involved in the above case was a UNP
supporter who was killed even before the election. Several
supporters of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), and the United
Socialist Alliance (USA), also received equally brutal treatment
at subversive hands. We also came across several cases where
citizens were killed for exercising their right to vote at
elections.
Most of the anti-government subversive activities during this
period were carried out by an organization which called itself
the "Deshapremi Janatha Vyaparaya" (Patriotic People's
Movement). The JVP always claimed that the DJV was a separate
organization notwithstanding the fact that both organizations
shared common political views and their membership overlapped
with each other. Mr. Tylvin Silv, presently the Secretary of the
JVP, who gave evidence before the Commission reiterated this
position and maintained that the JVP cannot take responsibility
for the actions of the DJV. However, several special witnesses
from political parties and other organizations who appeared
before the Commission strongly believed that the DJV was only a
front organization of the JVP. Some went to the extent of saying
that the DJV had no separate existence and was an integral part
of the JVP movement. What was the popular perception? Thousands
of witnesses who came before us saw no difference between the
two; they used the name "JVP" through out.

VII. A Society Caught Between Two Forces

Many witnesses said that, caught between two
forces as they were, their life during this period was like a
"nut in a nut-cracker" (girayatha ahu vechcha puwak
gediyak vagei). They felt that there existed a kind of
"dual-power" situation in the country. The state had
lost its hegemony, and same referred to the authority of the JVP
as Punci Aanduwa (small government). The JVP imposed its
own curfews, organized island-wide hartals, and called for
frequent strikes. Some joined these protest movements under JVP
threats.

Many witnesses said that their families
suffered at the hands of both the security forces and the JVP
during this period.

In our area a group of JVP supporters went
from house to house and asked people to assemble for a
meeting. Later the army had raided the place and arrested
people. My son was among those who were arrested, and he
never came back home.

As a punishment for supporting the SLFP in
the 1988 election. The JVP asked me to kneel down on the road
for three hours. However, it was the security forces who
abducted my brother on a later occasion.

The resultant sense of isolation was portrayed
time and again in the evidence: "There was no one to
complain to. two The government was deaf; the opposition absent;
the police drove us away like dogs. The JVP killed, the army
killed," said a mother who had lost three sons taken away in
three different rounding-up operations never to return.

The police and armed forces are not alien
institutions to this society. The affected families also had
their own children and relatives serving in the police and armed
forces. We came across several instances where one member of the
family was killed by subversives as a punishment for serving in
the police or in the army; another member of the same family was
abducted by security forces for alleged subversive activities.